Old Acquaintance

Xu Yuan wanted to say something to ease Ran Qingmo's dejection, but she had already dragged the cushion beneath her over to a corner of the inner hall and begun cultivating, not giving him any chance to speak.

Xu Yuan could more or less guess what was on her mind.

But there was nothing he could do, because this was not something that could be soothed away.

Though Big Ice Block had always been icy and aloof, seemingly uninterested in anything besides cultivation, Xu Yuan knew that she, too, possessed the proud bones to stand peerless beneath heaven.

Without that pride, back in the cave beneath Heaven Gate Mountain, she would never have said that she could defeat Xu Changge of the Grandmaster realm.

Yet that pride had been stabbed clean through by him, a cheating bastard.

She had cultivated diligently for nineteen years to reach Origin Beginning, while he had leaped straight into Mortal Shedding in only three years.

No one could accept that.

Looking at the slender figure in black cultivating with her face to the wall, Xu Yuan let out a soft breath.

Since they had met, she had always played the role of his protector. Now, less than a month after their separation, he had just experienced the helplessness of facing a Half-Saint, only for their positions to be completely reversed.

More than having her pride pierced through, her dejection

came from feeling that she could no longer help him.

The corridor was empty, footsteps echoing through it.

After leaving the three women with the accompanying secret art for activating the talismans, Xu Yuan left the inner hall alone to receive the distinguished guest from the Celestial Master Mansion.

As he walked through the palace complex, Xu Yuan seriously took stock of the airborne palace that